BERN, December 12: In the latest development on bringing back stashed money, the Swiss parliament has approved the automatic exchange of bank data details with 18 additional countries including Pakistan.
According to Swiss media, the Senate followed the House of Representative’s lead and approved a new list of countries for automatic exchange of financial information (AEOI) which will provide the details of bank accounts held by their citizens (or those with a fiscal residence in Switzerland).
These 18 countries include Pakistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Brunei, Dominica, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Macau, Maldives, Nigeria, Niue, Oman, Peru, Samoa, Saint Martin, Trinidad and Tobago and Vanuatu.
Meanwhile, the Senate has decided to not consider Turkey for this process as it was not yet ready for automatic exchange.
It is to be mentioned here that Switzerland authorities have received financial data from 75 countries so far, however, it has shared the data with 63 states.
The Swiss government has further revealed that it had provided details of around 3.1 million bank accounts held by foreigners to their countries of origin.-Sabah
